Wouldbelove, do not think of me as a whetstone

until you hear the whole story:

In it, I’m not the hero, but I’m not the villain either

so let’s say, in the story, I was human

and made of human-things: fear

and hands, underbelly and blade. Let me

say it plain: I loved someone

and I failed at it. Let me say it

another way: I like to call myself wound

but I will answer to knife. Sometimes

I think we have the same name, Notquitelove. I want

to be soft, to say here is my underbelly and I want you

to hold the knife, but I don’t know what I want you to do:

plunge or mercy. I deserve both. I want to hold and be held.  

Let me say it again, Possiblelove: I’m not sure

you should. The truth is: If you don’t, I won’t

die of want or lonely, just time. And not now, not even

soon. But that’s how every story ends eventually.

Here is how one might start: Before. The truth?

I’m not a liar but I close my eyes a lot, Couldbelove.

Before, I let a blade slide itself sharp against me. Look

at where I once bloomed red and pulsing. A keloid

history. I have not forgotten the knife or that I loved

it or what it was like before: my unscarred body

visits me in dreams and photographs. Maybelove,

I barely recognize it without the armor of its scars.

I am trying to tell the truth: the dreams are how

I haunt myself. Maybe I’m not telling the whole story:

I loved someone and now I don’t. I can’t promise

to leave you unscarred. The truth: I am a map

of every blade I ever held. This is not a dream.

Look at us now: all grit and density. What, Wouldbelove

do you know of knives? Do you think you are a soft thing?

I don’t. Maybe the truth is: Both. Blade and guard.

My truth is: blade. My hands

on the blade; my hands, the blade; my hands

carving and re-carving every overzealous fibrous

memory. The truth is: I want to hold your hands

because they are like mine. Holding a knife

by the blade and sharpening it. In your dreams, how much invitation

to pierce are you? Perhapslove, the truth is: I am afraid

we are both knives, both stones, both scarred. Or we will be.

The truth is: I have made fire

before: stone against stone. Mightbelove, I have sharpened

this knife before: blade against blade. I have hurt and hungered

before: flesh

against flesh. I won’t make a dull promise.

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes – 
I wonder if It weighs like Mine – 
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long – 
Or did it just begin – 
I could not tell the Date of Mine – 
It feels so old a pain – 

I wonder if it hurts to live – 
And if They have to try – 
And whether – could They choose between – 
It would not be – to die – 

I note that Some – gone patient long – 
At length, renew their smile –  
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil – 

I wonder if when Years have piled –  
Some Thousands – on the Harm –  
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –  

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve – 
Enlightened to a larger Pain –  
In Contrast with the Love –  

The Grieved – are many – I am told –  
There is the various Cause –  
Death – is but one – and comes but once –  
And only nails the eyes –  

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –  
A sort they call "Despair" –  
There's Banishment from native Eyes – 
In sight of Native Air –  

And though I may not guess the kind –  
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –  

To note the fashions – of the Cross –  
And how they're mostly worn –  
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like my own –